Synology, BabyDragon II, NFS vs iSCSI, and Linux performance

[1clue]

Hi,

Working with a very small office. Setting up a Synology 2-disk array and starting with 1 BabyDragon II setup for virtualization, possibly winding up with 2 or 3. We haven't bought anything yet, but will soon.

The only benchmarks I can find are Windows oriented. Anyone using this setup, and can you give me a list of gotchas to avoid right off the bat?

And, can you give me a comparison of KVM and VMware ESXi as a host for this particular setup?

We're looking at a DS712+, DS213+ or DS213 because that's what's in the budget. I've read all the specs, googled each and searched for each on VMware's site. I know nothing of the KVM end of it, which is in part what I'm doing here.

I'm interested in Gentoo or some other KVM host, or in VMware ESXi if I can't make a strong enough case for Linux.

Also, spinning disks or SSDs?

I've read that NFS shares are faster than iSCSI, but there seems to be some sort of issues with getting NFS shares set up right. I've never tried this with any sort of SAN/NAS so I need all the help I can get.

Any experience here would be much appreciated.